Pimco adds $2bn to asset-based private lending strategy
Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco) has raised more than $2bn (£1.56bn) for its asset-based lending strategy, as the investment house moves deeper into the private lending space.
According to a 25 October SEC filing, two investors are behind the new funding, although their names were not disclosed. The filing described the strategy as a pooled investment fund, which is not being made in connection with a business combination transaction, such as a merger, acquisition or exchange offer.
Earlier this year, Pimco portfolio manager Kris Kraus described specialty finance as “an expanding world of opportunity.”
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“We’ve seen for many years now the development of the private corporate direct lending market,” he said.
“And as we think about specialty finance, there’s this very, very large world that sits outside of that that we’ve been active in the form that that risk has taken has changed.
“Some of the risks that we work on underwriting and managing on behalf of clients may have been originally developed years ago in a securitisation market, but now in the private markets, we may have better access to information.”
Kraus added that he saw plenty of room for growth in the speciality finance space.
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“I think for specialty finance, and for asset-based lending more broadly, we’re much more at the beginning of the game, and there’s just, I think, a lot of tailwinds to support this development,” he said.
Kraus is leading Pimco’s asset-backed lending strategy, along with portfolio managers Harin de Silva and Jason Steiner.
Earlier this month Mohit Mittal, Pimco’s chief investment officer for core strategies, told Bloomberg that private debt returns are not aligned with growing levels of risk. He warned investors to be “very thoughtful” and “very careful” with their investments in the more levered portions of the credit markets.
Pimco managed $2.01tn in assets at the end of September 2024.
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